


What We Have Common

by Ghostcat



Series: All Things Go [4]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types, Veronica Mars - Fandom
Genre: Bromantic Comedy, Canon Character of Color, Character Study, Close Talking, Competitive Flirting, Drinking & Talking, Eye Sex, Frenemies, Gen, Latino Character, POV Character of Color, Recreational Drug Use, Snark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weevil Navarro, his incredibly poor choice of a research paper prepping locale and the close talking, finger waving jackass that interrupts and effectively hijacks his night. </p><p>Set in 2010, three years after The Bitch is Back. Part of the non-chronological All Things Go series, works as a one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Meet-Cute

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T (plus) for competitive flirting, language, general sauciness, violence, Logan being Logan.
> 
> This story is set three years after the events of the Season Three finale, The Bitch is Back. Probably AU but we'll see just how drastically after the movie comes out.
> 
> Part 4 of a longer series, All Things Go, based on a playlist of song prompts. "Poetic Justice (feat. Drake)" by Kendrick Lamar is the prompt for this one and provides the title. Works as a one-shot.
> 
> Logan Echolls and Eli "Weevil" Navarro belong to Rob Thomas.
> 
> As always, blithers saves my bacon by being a brilliant beta. Thank you, you are wonderful.
> 
> The sentence that Weevil reads over and over again is from [The Last Tower by Ben Austin](http://harpers.org/print/?pid=88213).

His thumb is on his tongue and then it’s on the page, turning it, 67 left. He groans internally and rubs his eyes. He had almost beaten it. The voice in his head telling him he is gonna fuck up and flunk because he is a stupid, ignorant loser. The one that says you don’t even belong here, reading a chapter entitled “Failures in the History of Public Housing in America” in some college bar packed full of dumb, happy kids who have two point five parents paying for their education, sending them off to Aspen over the break to do white people shit, like drinking cappuccinos and skiing. _He_ had a paper to write, the school library was closed and the only thing he was going to be seeing over the break were his responsibilities, the ones that talked and the ones that didn’t.

Why are you even doing this? Go have a beer with your friends. Sex up a hot girl. Not this. It’s not for you, homie. Not one bit of it. It’s Friday night.

But things change. So he says fuck that noise to that noise. He is doing great in his classes and he is going to kill on this assignment.

That’s when someone slips into his booth and slides a shot his way. He grimaces and looks up, only to see Logan fucking Echolls smiling at him with that stupid face of his.

"Fancy seeing you here, Pedro Picapiedra," he drawls, popping all his p’s with relish. "It’s been a while." Smarmy little fuck.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“Sure, didn’t your abuela let you watch the funnies on Saturdays? Oh wait.” He stops and covers his mouth with his hand. “That’s right, you probably didn’t have a TV!” He makes a screen with his fingers, shakes his head in a questioning no. “Shoot. My bad. Didn’t mean to rub your nose in it.”

This is an old routine and there is comfort in it. And just like old times, Weevil Navarro wants to greet Logan Echolls the way he should always be greeted: by giving him a good, hard punch in the face. He looks around slowly to gauge whether or not he can pop him an undetected quick one, something fast, elbow to nose would do, good for a nosebleed, but there’s too many eyes. He looks back at Echolls and forces himself to smile. Echolls nods and grins back, his beady little eyes sparkling with enjoyment, like he’d just read his mind.

“Don’t worry Weevs, the night is young. Play nice and you might just get your wish.” He flutters his eyelashes and clinks his shot glass, knocking his drink back. He gestures towards the shot. “Come on. Chin, chin. Drink up.”

Weevil takes the drink and downs it, welcoming the warmth of it with a lick of his lips, then pointedly goes back to reading. Echolls laughs.

“Someone never read their Emilia Postalez. This is the part where you say, ‘Thank you, Logan for buying me a top shelf shot. It was very thoughtful of you.’”

Weevil smirks, says nothing, keeps his eyes on the page. He’s not really reading, he’s stuck on a single sentence. _The scary “Cabrini-Green” vision of project life certainly plays some part in the now widespread sentiment that public-housing residents are undeserving of government “handouts.”_   Eventually, the sentence becomes a word— _undeserving_. _Undeserving_. _Undeserving_. He wonders how long he can fake it before Echolls leaves him alone. _Undeserve_. _Deserve_. _Serve_. The bastard laughs, stretching out his legs until his feet are on the booth cushion next to him, moving them back and forth like sneakered windshield wipers. He’s not going anywhere. Weevil sighs, rolls his shoulders, closes his book.

“Attaboy.” Echolls smiles and holds two fingers up in the air. The waitress at the bar sees the gesture and starts pouring another round of the good stuff.

 

* * *

 

Maybe all that was needed to sit with Logan Echolls at a bar and not slam his head onto the table were two shots of excellent tequila. Either that or this was some crazy Twilight Zone shit of the highest order because he’s spent the last twenty minutes talking about his current class schedule with arguably the biggest asshole he’s ever met in his life and it’s been violence-free. That can’t hold. What was that poem they talked about in his English class… The one about the center not holding? Blood, tides, anarchy and more fucking blood? Yeah, that’s right. Yeats. Echolls is a poem about the apocalypse. Weird as fuck metaphor. Wouldn’t really fly as subject material for a paper, there wasn’t anything to argue or prove. But it would make sense to him. He had a lot of things like that. Proving shit wasn’t his forte, but he _felt_ it and if there was one thing about college that depressed him above everything else, it was that. It wasn’t enough to feel it or know, you had to _explain_ and he resented it. Couldn’t say why.

“So what… at the rate you’re going, you’ll be graduating in 2013. Perfect timing, Weevs. Just in time for the Mayan Apocalypse. You probably planned it that way, huh?”

Weevil ignores the crack. It was weak, usually homeboy’s better at the classist meets racist repartee. "Not 2013. Not that long. Maybe sooner. Depends.”

“On what?”

“On the boys doing good in school, growing up, staying out of trouble... surviving all of this.”

Echolls fiddles with a coin and throws it up in the air. It lands loud on the table, between the wet rings left by their drinks, tails up. He clears his throat. "Heard about your grandma.”

“Yeah.” Weevil eyes him carefully. “The flowers were nice. You pick ‘em out yo’self?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Weevil knows this game. Echolls stares at him impassively. Fine. He’ll let it pass. "You read about the lawsuit, right?”

Echolls makes a noncommittal gesture, lifting his shoulder slightly, like he’s rolling it, and Weevil takes that as a yes.

“So the hospital settled?” Echolls mumbles, pocketing his coin.

Weevil lifts his eyebrows. “Yeah. They knew they didn’t have a chance. It was right there in the paperwork. A two decimal point mistake.”

Echolls opens his mouth to say something but appears to think better of it. Weevil can read a useless sorry from a mile away, so he nods, and raises his empty pint glass.

“Thank you, Neptune General. For killing my grandma and getting me a house.”

Weevil laughs. It’s bitter but not forced. He has to laugh because it’s fucking awful and any other response would be too much, like, hand meets glass, break and blood  _too much_. He looks up at Echolls expecting something else, confusion, distaste, something, but he’s just nodding and running his finger around the rim of his shot glass.

Echolls puts his finger in his mouth and pulls it out with a pop. “So where are the kids tonight, Seňor Mom? Attending the Hogwarts equivalent for gangbanging?”

Weevil snorts. “My cousin Estrella in San Diego takes them every other weekend so I can have the place to myself, catch up on schoolwork, entertain. They're big boys now. Old enough to take care of themselves but young enough to still need a guiding hand. You know what I'm talking about.”

“No. Not really," he says blandly. "Your cousin… she hot?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Echolls laughs shortly, leans back and looks around the bar. “I need to get laid.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

Fuckface tilts his head and narrows his eyes at him. “So do you from the looks of things. And something tells me you’ll be a better wingman than Dick.”

He ain’t wrong, on either count.

Weevil licks his lips. “Nah. I don’t do that nonsense. This ain't a buddy movie. Besides, you might fuck up my game.”

“Listen paco, I _am_ game.” Echolls glances around some more. “Ah. And there we have it. Hold down the fort, I’ll be right back.”

Echolls raps on the table with his knuckles, two quick knocks, and slinks off. Weevil rubs his face and considers making a run for it while White Boy’s occupied with his poontang search. He eyes the back entrance, alarm is off, all clear. Just as he’s about to bust out, books all packed away, Mr. Pain in the Ass is back, arms around two women. One busty redhead with wide, smiling lips, the other a dark-eyed brunette in a rock t-shirt under a jean jacket, both crazy fine.

“Going somewhere?”  Echolls raises his eyebrows. Weevil has to hand it to him, dude worked quick.

“Yeah, going to the bar to see what I can get these ladies.”

One giggles, a warm, rushing sound, and the other smiles sardonically. Echolls gives him an okay sign with his fingers, acknowledging the smooth. Damn straight.

“Lemon Drop, please,” says the redhead, all dimples, freckles and curves. 

“And for you?” he asks gorgeous number two, the dark princess with the… is that a tattoo creeping around her neck? Leaves? No. Thorns.

“Cranberry and soda, no ice. Thanks.”

Weevil raises his eyebrow and smiles. Nice. Very nice.


	2. The Bet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan makes Weevil an offer he can't refuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, to [blithers](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/pseuds/blithers) for her continued excellence as a beta reader. You are the creme de la creme.
> 
> Also thank you to
> 
> [MachaSWicket](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket) for her clear, wise notes and encouragement. 
> 
> [Absolutely Iris](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsolutelyIris/pseuds/AbsolutelyIris) for that much needed swift quick to the backside.

Red’s name is Samantha, call her Sam, and she’s a double major in shit he don't care about. The girl’s cute as hell, great body, and is definitely feeling him, if her hand sitting bold on his thigh is anything to go by. She’s also wearing what looks like an engagement ring. Legit or just fake-out bling for those bar-ruining Pi frat fucks? Doesn't really matter. Let the lady decide, as his grandma used to say, and he’s feeling confident that this dime piece, her plush top lip with no sharp edges and hips that would fill up his hands like Christmas, is gonna be deciding all up on Weevil tonight.

Erica is a whole ‘nother story. Sharp, sarcastic, with intense brown eyes so dark they read black. She seems tight with Echolls, he can’t figure out what their deal is. She snaps on him hard but she also lets him put his arm around her shoulder. Are they fucking? Had they fucked? He watches as Echolls’ fingers play with a frayed bit from her jean jacket, then meets his eyes as he’s caught staring. Fucker raises an eyebrow and smiles. Weevil smiles back the way a knife might.

First chance he gets, when Sam and Erica go to the bathroom, paired up, the way they do, Echolls slides into his side of the booth, pushing in a little closer than strictly necessary.

“Yo, back the fuck up. Personal space.” Weevil growls.

The punk wiggles back a tiny bit but still leans in more than he needs to. Weevil grits his teeth, starts reciting the names of saints in his head.

Echolls looks around the bar, smirk on simmer. “So… what do you think?”

“About what?” Weevil looks at him blankly. “The girls?”

He sighs impatiently and plays with a napkin on the table, moving it with the tips of his fingers, this way and that way. “About overcrowding in the federal prison system. Yes. The girls.”

Weevil shrugs. “They’re nice. Cute.”

“Nice. Cute,” he repeats flatly.

“Yeah, they’re hot.”

“So?”

“So what? What is this? The Richie Rich Inquisition?”

Echolls tilts forward onto the table dramatically, resting his head on his outstretched arm, looking at him from underneath lowered lashes. He speaks softly, with a small, placating smile. “Just curious, little man.”

“Believe me, little doesn’t come into it.”

He smirks and nods. “Right.” Echolls stretches some more, guy is like the world’s most annoying rubber band. He breaks a water ring on the table with a finger, writing something with it, letters looping around, and wipes it with his palm before Weevil can see what he’d written. He looks up, something in his sly expression putting Weevil on alert. 

“How about Sam? You like her?” Echolls narrows his eyes at him showily. “Can’t really tell if she’s your type or not. Then again, maybe if I tell you _I’m_ interested then she’ll magically become your type. Would you say that was right?”

Weevil needs more than saints right now.

Echolls plays dumb, stupid little smirk wiggling on his face. “What? I think that’s a fair question, historically speaking.” He laughs, slapping his palm down the table. “Come on, lighten up, hermano. I’m trying to be fair here. If you’re planning on hooking up with Sam, I don’t want to accidentally step on any teensy toeses by getting in the mix. ”

Weevil's lips twitch into a tight grin. “Get this straight, _bro_. If I was going for it, you wouldn’t be stepping on shit.”

Echolls sits up suddenly, hand on his ear, look of confusion on his face. “Que? I didn’t understand any of that. Was that English? Or puro machismo?” He stresses the p’s and the s’s in a florid Telemundo announcer voice and Weevil shoves him damn near out the booth. They both laugh but shithead laughs louder, clutching his stomach, then holding his hands up in a kind of surrender. “Hey. Hey. Weevs. Let’s play nice tonight. Huh? Truce. What do you say?”

Weevil says nothing, his laughter dying out.

Echolls leans back, looking up at the ceiling. "I know. How about a friendly wager? For old time’s sake?”

Weevil raises an eyebrow at him. This sounds interesting. “Wager? What are we betting on?”

“Who gets her first."

“Wow. You’re a class act, you know that, man?”

Echolls smiles. Kid’s got a whole lotta smiles and hardly any of ‘em seem real. “You in or out? Unless… you don’t think you can handle the competition. I get it, I do. I am intimidating.”

“Who are we talking about here? Your gal pal, Erica?”

“Nope. She’s not interested. Sam.”

Could he take Echolls in this fight? Depends on what Sam is looking for. A meal ticket? No chance. Some fun? Definitely. More than fun? A boyfriend? He didn't think so. What did Echolls want? Oh yeah, he wanted to get laid. Weevil eyes him deliberately, in assessment. Echolls is dressed well, if casual. Still projects money. Echolls' watch alone was probably two or three month’s salary for him. Would she notice? Maybe. He’s leaner than he used to be. Harder edged. Lost some of that fratty douchy Ed Hardy bro vibe. No puka shell either. His hair is shorter too. Not a good look on him, makes his ears stand out too much. Women don’t usually care about that though. They cared about bigger things.

“What are the stakes?” Weevil licks his lips slowly.

“Let’s go all out.” Echolls waggles his eyebrows, eyes shining merrily. “Cars.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I win, I get your car. You win, you get mine.”

“That’s bullshit. Why would you want my car?”

Weevils crosses his arms and watches Echolls prop his face up with his hand, his fingers making an L shaped bracket. Index finger on his cheek, thumb under the chin, a smile playing on his lips.

“I dunno. Maybe I want to see you take the bus.”

He flicks a straw wrapper at him, his grin growing banana-wide. Logan Fucking Echolls.

Something don't smell right. “Why is Erica off the table?”

Echolls looks at his fingers, then back at him slowly. “She’s a long term proposition and we have one night. Sam or nothing.”

Weevil tilts his head back and forth slowly, stretching out his neck, a knowing smile dawning on his face.

It's like he reads his mind. “No. I have no undue advantage. This is the first time I’m hanging out with her.”

He’s gonna regret this. “You’re on.”

“Excellent.” Echolls rubs his hands together. “I think you may have the starting advantage, Weevs. She seems to like you. But you shouldn’t underestimate me. I tend to come from behind.”

They shake hands. Weevil wants to wipe that smirk off his face so he holds on and pulls Echolls forward, whispering in his ear.

“Tell me, what would _our_ girl think of this little wager?”

Predictable as ever, Echolls’ whole demeanor changes, his body stiffens right up. This always seems to happen when he brings up V. Echolls tilts his head slightly, his stare hard.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering, she’s usually like, real concerned about your asshole antics. This doesn’t seem like something she’d approve of, you know what I’m sayin’? She might not wanna hear about it.”

Echolls' response is a whisper, powder soft with a hint of strychnine. “You gonna call her and tell her? Huh? Gonna rat me out? Over what? Hooking up?”

Fucker’s voice is flat, affectless like a no-wind day but he’s sweatin’ anyway. He’s obvious as hell. His hard little eyes may look like he wants to cut him, but it's undermined by his open-mouthed look of pure hurt. Echolls can't hide it, that weakness of his. Weevil never understood how his 09er buddies saw him as their badass leader when he was on the brink of crying like a damn bitch all the time.

“Go ahead. Be my guest. Here… ” Echolls puts a iPhone down on the table and slides it over to him. “You can even use my phone.” He circles the air with his pointer finger. “You know how to work those right? It may require your thumbs.”

They stare at each other for a while. Long enough for a new song to start.

Echolls taps the table again. "Here, I'll help— it's under V for... Voracious." He smiles but the baiting is empty. His eyes got no spark.

Weevil shrugs, slides it back.

“Nah, she made her own bed. She knows who you are.”

Logan keeps staring at him, his fingers tented over the surface of the phone. Something seems to satisfy him because he looks away, his expression bland.

“Newsflash, Weevs. Veronica Mars hasn't been my girlfriend for quite some time. I’m sure she’s well past caring what I do.”

Echolls is one dumb cracker if he truly thinks that but Weevil sure as shit isn’t gonna disabuse him of his notions. Weevil and V hadn't been too tight before she went poof outta Neptune a few years back but he still felt like he _understood_ her, would always understand her, knew what made her tick. From his experience, all you had to do to make Veronica Mars _care_ was put Logan Echolls in front of her. Then she was carin’ right quick.

Homeboy keeps looking down at his phone, his eyes darting around in thought, lost. His face changes at the sight of the approaching girls, suddenly he’s Mr. Chuckles again. He slides back into his booth, laughing when Erica tries to beat him to it and loses. Weevil stands up and lets Sam scoot in.

“Thank you,” she says, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

“You’re welcome.” He sits down and stretches his legs. Her skirt is silken and it brushes against his fingers. Weevil takes hold of a corner and rubs it with his thumb. He looks over at Echolls, to gauge what he has planned. But he’s not even paying attention, just whispering in Erica’s ear. This bothered him.

“So Erica, when did you meet this punkass?”

Erica points to her right. Her nails are painted black and are short, like she bites them.

“Who, Logan? We were in the same Sociology class, freshman year. But we didn't really get to know each other until sophomore year.”

Weevil smiles. Riiiiiiight. Mr. Waste No Time. Echolls frowns and shakes his head, almost imperceptibly.

 _What? Can’t bring up our runaway girl, dog?_ _I wonder why._

Weevil turns to Erica. “Kinny?”

“Yes!” she replies, sipping her drink.

“That dude’s a trip. Really opened my eyes to a lot of stuff.”

“I know, his class was fantastic.”

Echolls rolls his eyes.

“What’s the matter, Echolls? Didn't feel the love?”

“Not really my thing. Sociology is a monumentally depressing subject.”

“Well, yeah.” Erica raises her eyebrows and holds her hands out in front of her. “It’s kind of inherently a bummer.”

“Yeah, Echolls. Life sucks and it’s all your fault, white boy.”

Erica laughs has a slight rasp to it and it’s sweet. Her front tooth is crooked and when she laughs she tries to hide it by covering her mouth.

“Wait. Why is it his fault?” Sam pipes in.

Weevil turns to her. “Because he’s rich and white. He’s the establishment, the power structure, all that shit.”

Echolls has enough sense and grace to bow, mock-placing a monocle over his eye.

“You know what I don’t get?” Sam asks, playing with her drink straw.

“What?” Weevil takes a closer look at the rock on her finger. If it's a fake, it's a good one.

“Why are people so hung up on race? I mean, you’re not white and I am, and we’re hanging out and there’s no problem, right?”

Echolls raises his eyebrows and looks at Weevil delightedly.

Erica clears her throat. “Well… Technically, he _is_ white?”

Weevil puckers his lips, matching Echolls’ incredulous look.

“I mean on the census, you would be considered White and your _ethnicity_ would be…”

“Mexicano,” Logan sing songs.

“Mexican,” Weevil clarifies, simultaneously.

“Right.” Erica looks back and forth between the two of them briefly before settling back on Weevil. “You’re considered _White_. As far as the US government’s concerned, you’re a Caucasian of Mexican ethnicity.”

Weevil laughs. Sometimes he hates his laugh. A stupid heh heh heh he’d memorized but never really felt. He just cranks it out whenever he wants to soften the blow. He exhales loudly. “Yeah, but that’s the census. Numbers don't represent the government, it's just data. It definitely doesn't represent life. Not real life. Here I’m a tattooed thug with a hot car looking to steal your shit, right?”

Echolls open his mouth, then closes it just as quick. Weevil waits him out, but Echolls doesn’t go for it.

Weevil sighs. “You know, I can’t make a single conversation at Hearst without the other person asking me where I’m from within the first five minutes.” He knocks back the rest of his drink and smacks his lips. "Every time."

Sam plays with her hair, running it through her fingers. “But that doesn’t have to mean anything? People are curious about one another? That’s why we ask questions. I mean, I'm curious about you and I want to know more about you."

“I don’t know, Sam,” Erica stretches out her words, fingers skittering over the rim of her half-empty glass. “I understand what he's saying. Every time someone asks me where _I’m_ from and I tell them Neptune, they always add a “Really?”, as if I might not be sure. I’m serious. It puts me off, makes me uncomfortable. I never knew why. Then one day I realized, holy shit, they’re saying, in the nicest, most passive aggressive way, that I don’t belong here. The point is, even if there’s a smile on the face of the person talking to you, it’s not nice. It’s not nicely meant. Not really. There’s a term for this— microaggression. It's common as dirt. I mean, I’m no angel. I do it too.” She brought her hand up to her face, tucked her hair behind her ear, trailing her fingers down the thorns tattooed on her neck. A practiced gesture, self-soothing. “It’s a matter of retraining yourself to examine the way you talk to people that you automatically classify as other.” She glances up at Echolls, who listens to her with a disarmingly sincere-looking expression. “I don’t know. Shut up. Don’t look at me.”

Sam takes Erica’s hand and squeezes it, sitting up brightly. “Okay, I get it. I really do. But devil’s advocate here— does it always have to _mean_ that? Does it always have to be negative? Couldn't I just be asking because I'm interested?”

Erica shrugs. “I guess. But I’d say that, intentions-wise, you’d be in the minority.”

Logan laughs and Erica hides her face, wincing behind her hands. "That was _not_ intentional."

The waitress comes over and Sam orders another round for the table. Weevil licks his lips and points his chin at Erica decisively.

“You’re from Neptune?” Weevil asks.

“Yeah, Canyon Portal. You and Logan are friends from Neptune High, right?”

Friends? The two boys share a look. Echolls laughs, scratching his neck. Weevil nods.

“Well, I went to Pan.” Erica bumps her fist weakly. "Whoo! Goats!"

“Pan sucks,” Echolls murmurs automatically.

They look at him. He sighs. “What? Like it doesn’t?”

Weevil runs his hand down his goatee thoughtfully. “You Spanish?”

“No, Armenian. My parents anyway. I was born in L.A. Moved here in ‘05.”

“ _Eli._ ” Echolls tsk tsks. “Enough with the microaggressions. Rude.” He leans over the table, towards Sam, bites his lip and grins.

“And where are _you_ from, Sam?”

Heh. Nice one, Echolls.

“From here. The red, white and the blue. ” She waves a tiny invisible flag.

“Same as me.” Echolls’ voice is all disingenuousness.

“And me.” Weevil pulls back a bit. To see if she follows. She does. A little. Her knees move to touch his. She still faces forward though, but it won’t take much to change that. He angles towards Echolls and gloats a little.

“Right.” Logan winks at Weevil and looks back at Sam, taking her hand. “ —what about your… ethnicity?”

“Caucasian, duh.”

Her voice is high and breathy. Weevil looks down and sees that Echolls has taken her hand and is softly rubbing the spot between her thumb and pointer finger, the little webbing there. Is he for real? Dude is not getting his car. Weevil might be boring as fuck lately, more likely to stay home and fall asleep on top of a textbook, but he isn't dead and neither is his dick.

Weevil drops his hand back to her skirt, but down near the hem, so that the whisper of his fingers brushes skin. Her eyes shift back to him. He makes sure to put a little extra depth to his voice, he wants her to hear it in her body. Right in the middle of her chest. He looks at her lips, licks his, and looks back up at her eyes, which are half shut. Got her. “And where is your family from originally, gorgeous?”

“Oh, umm. A bunch of places. Ireland, England. My dad says we have some Cherokee blood but I don’t think he actually knows.” She laughs and leans towards him.  “I grew up in Ohio. A place called Delphos? That’s near Lima, which is nothing like Glee, trust me.” She giggles.

The area below her neck is pink and he watches her locket rise and fall. He reaches out and fingers it lightly before looking up into her eyes. “Do a lot of people ask you that though? When they meet you?”

Her pupils are large, he can barely see the green in her eyes. He finds the clasp of the locket and glances at her with the unspoken question. She reaches down and pops it open with a tiny click.

“Sometimes. I mean, not all the time. I’m so obviously American, you know?”

The photo ain’t what he expects. It's a woman, older, her grandmother? Her glasses are the old fashioned kind, like from the 50s. She’s got a nice face. Weevil clicks the locket shut and looks back into Sam’s eyes, a mix of honey and money, beautiful.

“They _always_ ask me. And I was born,” he slides a little closer, “...a few miles away. And everyone I know around here looks. Like. Me.”

“You have the prettiest eyelashes,” she breathes, leaning towards him.

Echolls bursts out laughing, breaking the spell.

“Look at us, learning lessons! It’s adorable.” He claps and brings up his tented fingers to his mouth for a beat, then points them back out. “What do you say we take this Kumbaya over to the Foosball table and engage in some friendly competition? Rickie and me versus you and Maybe-It’s-Maybelline.”

Sam claps and jumps a little in her seat. “Ooh, sounds fun.”

Erica sips her drink and nods. “I’m in.”

Weevil steps out of the booth to let Sam pass, she steadies herself on his chest as she gets up. He knows she didn’t have to, she wasn’t in danger of losing her balance, but he looks down at her fingers, slim and soft as the swipe across. She bumps hips with Erica as they make their way over to the table. Yes. He feels an arm around him and looks up at Echolls giving him one of his smug grins. Weevil pushes him away.

“What do I always tell you, dawg? Keep your hands to yourself. Damn.”

Fucker laughs again. Weevil needs to start charging, seeing as he’s keeping Echolls amused. Fair is only fair.

 

* * *

 

Weevil spends the next twenty minutes trying to teach Sam how to play Foosball. He aligns himself behind her, puts his hand over hers, shows her just how to flick her wrist. She laughs, gasping at every bar pull and hip push but no improvement. Echolls and Erica are destroying them and Weevil can’t figure out what rankles him more, the fact that he's losing to Mr. Jazz Hands, or the way the idiot's making Erica laugh. Weevil is starting to get the feeling that he’s been outmaneuvered yet again.

A bunch of jerks in Hearst sweatshirts wander up. The tallest one with the widest neck and hair that looks like a black plastic wig opens his mouth, he’s got a voice made for locker rooms. “Hey, when are you gonna get off this thing? We've been waiting for an hour.”

Weevil tenses and looks over at Echolls, who’s gone from goofball to viper in the space of a sentence. He doesn't like to examine it much, but he knows he has a few things in common with the punk— blonde pain-in-the-asses, dead mothers, lost friends, calling the shots and of course, the siren call of a fight. Echolls looks at him then, nodding once. His expression is neutral but one of his hands clenches. Good. They’re both ready.

Man, he can’t think of anything more satisfying than pounding on some thick-necked frat fucks until they beg him to stop. It’s nice to know someone else feels the same. Even if it’s Echolls.

Sam’s voice, bright and precise, rings out. “I'm so sorry! Has it really been that long? Tell you what, can we play you for it? Whoever scores five goals first wins the table for the next half hour?”

Pendejo #1 has thick, fleshy lips that look like they've been pulled back from the inside, the way kids do to scare other kids. He openly stares at Sam’s cleavage, his Adam's apple bobbing from the effort it takes to pretend he’s an actual human being instead of a fucking ape.

“Yeah, but only if we play _you_ , sweetheart.”

Sam and Erica share a look of why not? It’s cheerful and mild. It throws him. Why are him and Echolls the only ones seeing a threat here?

“Fine,” Sam replies airily. She turns to them. “Who wants to be my partner?”

Logan stirs from his spot next to Erica. “I will.”

Echolls is good. Dude must figure that he can win this by himself. He touches Sam on the arm, gestures her towards defense. She laughs.

“I think I’ll stay here. You take care of defense.”

His face is all question, but he seems to accept it. Echolls turns to the dudebros with that Classic Opie expression, dim and neutral.

Pendejo #2 is short, blonde but his head is just as red and just as square as his buddy’s. He’s got little piggish blue eyes, an upturned nose and his mouth hangs open, revealing what look like too many brilliantly white Chiclet teeth. He reminds him of someone. He can’t figure out who. Pendejo #2 gives Sam the ball.

Sam looks around. “Do I throw it in? Or is there something…”

Pendejo #1 laughs and it sounds like he’s getting punched in the stomach, huh huh huh. “In the middle. There’s a hole in the side. On the side.”

“Oh, I see. Thank you! What are we playing to again? That's right. Best of five? Sound good?”

Both Pendejos turn to each other, then nod yes at the same time, like creepy twins.

“Cool! Let's go." Sam looks at the ball and plops it in. Pendejo #1 on offense spins the bar frenetically. Sam does nothing, she doesn’t even look at the table. The ball isn't moving. After a painfully long handful of seconds, she pushes the bar in hard, the ball heads down slowly, diagonally towards her men. When it touches, she taps it gently, pulls the bar in and passes sideways to herself by bouncing the ball against the side. The ball clacks hard and goes backwards, right to her waiting man.  She flicks lightly with her wrist, it connects with a satisfying crack. A clean, direct shot in.

She gleams, this girl, she practically sings. “Wow, that was _lucky_. 1 - 0.”

It only takes five minutes for Sam to destroy those chumps. Straight up murder. It’s almost painful to watch. Echolls gets in on it by blowing on the ball for good luck, acting like her simpering assistant and, even with him dancing around, cracking her up, she scores point after point. Crack, snap, bang. Goal. Goal. Goal. Next to him, Erica smothers a laugh.

Weevil raises an eyebrow. "Did you know she was hustling them?"

Erica brings her finger to her lips. "Well, she's got a table in her garage at home and three brothers. Apparently there were a lot of brutal doubles competitions in their house growing up."

He's impressed. Also a little pissed. "Did he know?" He points his thumb at Echolls.

"No. They've never really hung out before.”

The Piggies take their loss in stride, conceding their defeat with something close to awe. Which disappoints since he could use a good fight. Logan buys another round. Sam catches Weevil's eye and mouths _sorry_ but her glossy lipped smile hovering over the rim of her glass says the opposite. She ain't sorry at all.

It’s like everybody decided to hit this place because suddenly the bar is crowded and loud as fuck. They lost their booth so they find a tiny patch to stand in, next to the jukebox. Echolls pulls Erica and Sam close, one arm around each shoulder and motions Weevil to get closer and listen.

“THIS BLOWS. LET’S GET OUT OF HERE.”

“WHERE TO?” Weevil shouts back.

The girls look at each other, then yell, “OUR PLACE.”

Echolls grins. “LEAD THE WAY.”

Weevil sees Echolls twirl Erica around in a tight circle and lets himself be lead by Sam. She pulls on his hand and they inch along through the crowd purposefully, like ants on a mission. He’s swept up in it, whatever’s happening, he lets himself forget to think. All he wants is outside.

 

* * *

 

They’re in Echolls’ car, Weevil left his behind at the bar. It’s a good neighborhood, he’s not worried, he’ll pick it up in the morning. Erica is at the wheel, driving them towards the apartment she shares with Sam. Her dark hair blows around her shoulders, and she’s laughing at some dumb joke Echolls just made.

Sam is in the back with him, her leg thrown over his.

“You played me, girl.”

She seems about as drunk as he is, which is right at the golden point, buzzed but not stupid. Aware. “No, Eli. I used everything you taught me.” Her fingers trail up his inseam. “You’re a very good teacher.”

He stops her hand, because he can, he’s not there yet, and she raises a single eyebrow of complaint.

“You like to hustle people, chica?” he asks her, soft but dangerous.

Her eyes do all the smiling. “Sometimes.”

Echolls looks in back, admiring Sam’s everything with a delighted smirk.

“Samantha. Can I borrow you next time I need to pull a fast one?”

She turns to him, giggling. “Sure. What will you give me in return for my services?”

The smirk turns into a smile, slow and big. “My body.”

Weevil rolls his eyes and huffs out a laugh.

Sam leans back, crossing her arms. “Oh, is that worth something?”

“Look me up on Yelp. I hear the reviews are good.”

“I just might,” she purrs.

They eye fuck and Weevil wants to punch somebody’s face. It’s high school all over again.

“Then you better do it fast, Sam. He’s leaving tomorrow morning for parts unknown.” says Erica from the front.

Weevil is curious, despite his irritation. Something about Fuckface’s entire vibe has been weird tonight. Like he’s holding something back. “For real? You never said this was your going away party, _dude_.”

“Aaaw. Where you going?” Sam coos.

Echolls is suspiciously blank. He shrugs, stretching out his hand in front of him. “To a whole new world.”

“He won’t tell me.” Erica bats at Echolls’ arm. “...Though judging from the lack of pre-trip vaccinations, I’m going to rule out altruism and guess Europe. Backpacking. Self-discovery. Binge drinking.”

She raises her hand and Logan high fives her without even turning his head, most of his attention fixed on Sam. Weevil feels a stab of jealousy. Must be nice to pick up and take off wherever the fuck you wanted. He grits his teeth. “That right, Echolls? You Eurotrippin’?”

Echolls is still eyeing the prize, locked in some weird silent communication with Sam. He flicks his gaze over to Weevil, bored and fast. “Sure.”

Sam toes off her flats and pokes Echolls with her pale, slim foot. “When do you leave?”

Echolls makes a big show of looking at his watch. “My flight is at 9:45.”

She sighs. “That doesn’t leave a lot of time for fun.”

“Oh, Sam.” Echolls rolls up a single sleeve and she watches the motion of his hand and arm like it was De La Hoya and Mayweather Jr. and she _knows_ she won the pot.

“You don’t have to take me up on it, you know.” He reaches down and casually circles her ankle with his fingers like it’s something you do. “You can just contemplate what I’m offering, turn me down, and dream of what might have been.”

Sam laughs. Her hand is off Weevil now. It’s back on her thigh. There are flowers in the pattern of her skirt and she circles the petals slowly with a fingernail. Weevil is struck suddenly by how beautiful she is, vibrant, smart, and also by how little he wants her. He doesn't understand it, she’s got it all. He looks at Echolls still simpering and mumbling at her, all coy downward looks and big dummy eyes. It’s almost like Echolls knew he’d lose interest. How did he know? Can the fucker add psychic to his list of skills?

They get to a leafy stretch of Little Neptune, an area that used to be a ragged mix of taco joints and 99 cents stores and had become something of fine dining strip. Hearst students that lived off campus flocked to the neighborhood. The rents were comparatively low, but judging by the amount of fancy white people bars and restaurants popping up everywhere that was bound to change, sooner rather than later.

Erica stops and parks in a small driveway of a two story house. She points to an apartment over a garage with a little deck on the side, deep off of the street.  “Home sweet home.”

When they get out, Weevil watches Sam saunter over to Echolls, leaning on him unnecessarily. He keeps his hands in his pockets and lets her do all the work. Smooth motherfucker. It wasn’t money, it wasn’t looks, it was just what he did. Echolls took shit from right under his nose. And Weevil hates him for it—not for doing it, but for not noticing that he did. He is angrier about that than his car. Weevil feels a hand on his arm and turns to find Erica looking at him, her dark eyes unreadable, no pupil in sight. “You okay, Eli?”

“Yeah.” He laughs to himself. “I think I just lost my car.”

Erica’s face is a question mark and while this is neither the time or the place, he’s compelled to do something he hasn't done in a long time. He smiles at her and feels it. Not sure why, he just does. She smiles back and walks over to the white wooden staircase leading up to her place, her rabbit-like high tops skipping soundlessly up, behind Echolls and Sam, who walk side by side, like dance partners. Sam’s hand in his back pocket.

Weevil stops. He should go home, he should listen to the voice that tells him to go home. Drink some coffee, sober up, keep reading about Pruitt-Igoe, about dealing in stairwells, smashed-up elevator lights and little kids playing in abandoned fields full of trash. He doesn't belong here. He never does. The breeze picks up and perfume wafts over to him, something like roses and candy, and up he goes, he follows, muttering _Fuck Shit Goddamn_ as he climbs the stairs.


	3. The Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The special quiet of a stranger's house, or, Weevil hangs out with Logan and Logan's lady friends. Truth, the domino effect of gang activity, and a long ago accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this two years ago. I didn't mean to bring the (topical) clowns. That was an accidental premonition.
> 
> Moms is not a typo.
> 
> And an extra special thank you to Blithers and Bryrosea for steering me through difficult waters. All remaining errors are mine and mine alone.

The dangers of choosing a college bar to study: letting the drinking overtake the studying, college cabrons eyeballin' his tats like they’s an invitation to rumble, Billy Joel music blocks on the jukebox, and waitresses with soft, I-get-off-in-an-hour-and-so-can-you eyes, pictures of their jealous boyfriends folded and forgotten in their wallets. And yet, all those small-time hazards were a damn sight safer than the special quiet of a stranger's house. Especially after Weevil’s already had a few laughs over drinks and the flirtation is fading into something more serious. Without the sound of other people's boozy conversation speeding things along, the location-change—their place or his—brings on a loaded hush, turns the night into a question. It could be straight to the sheets, could be crickets. He has to decide. Make moves.

He’s in their territory now.

Erica and Sam’s place is nice, new-looking, succulents on the table, prints on the wall and a couch that don't look like it's been bought and sold at Sal's a couple of times. No plastic on the cushions, no plastic cutlery in the sink waiting to be washed again and again. Their apartment smells clean and vanilla-scented from those little jars of oil with the sticks in ‘em, nothing ratty or busted, used within an inch of its life.

Weevil still feels that disconnect, the jarring differences in the way white middle-class people live. These girls probably never had to pick up government cheese from NAS, or experimented on it to see what would make it melt (answer: radiation, maybe) or if it could take a bullet in mid-flight (long story which only Felix—rest in peace—knew and took to his grave). They never had to help their grandma lug a busted-up armoire that somebody had thrown out through their neighborhood while everybody watched from their stoops, crackin' on them because that's what people do.

He can tell who these girls are because they have a lightness to them. They laugh easier, they care less. Not him. The settlement from his abuela’s wrongful death may have gotten him a house and some college but he still has to work. His eyes still settle on the cheapest, most filling thing on the menu. That shit never leaves. Powerlessness that comes from poverty is a special kind of fucked up. Knowing that the next misstep isn’t gonna lead to sad thoughts and a crying call to mom and dad but to utter hopelessness instead—the kind with no home, no family, no money, no future, and most importantly, no loophole.

“This is a nice couch. Is it suede?” he asks finally, trying to sound interested but achieving “vaguely pissed off” instead. He ain’t gonna lie, this ain't exactly his scene. He feels outnumbered and defensive, ready to bark and bite at a moment's notice.

“I'm not sure. Maybe synthetic?” says Sam, wrinkling her nose slightly in thought. She turns to Erica, who quirks her mouth in a ‘beats me’ expression.

Echolls pipes in, purring, “Amigo, you're making it way too easy on me. It's like you _want_ me to say 'Next you'll be eyeing the appliances.'”

Sam giggles, confused. “I don't get it.”

“Oh, we've got an infinite number of inside jokes. Right, Eli, old pal?”

Weevil doesn't respond, distracted by Erica biting into some ice with a loud crack. She looks around sheepishly. “Sorry. I forget I'm not alone sometimes.”

She's taken out the contacts he hadn't even guessed she needed and put on glasses, huge ones with bright green squarish frames like a ‘70s grandma. They are crazy-looking but work on her somehow. They make those big, brown eyes look even bigger, more serious. She scratches her cheek, her nails bitten short, the cuticles around her fingernails peeling and dusty red.

Echolls is next to Erica on the couch. He's got prime seating between the two girls, and for the past fifteen minutes he's been simultaneously whispering into Sam’s ear in an irritating-as-fuck baby-soft voice and using the hand closest to Erica to play with her hair.

_Multitaskin' motherfucker._

Meanwhile, Weevil's been sitting here thinking _hell nah_. He's not sure _why_ he's here but he sure isn't gonna stick around to watch Echolls score with two women in this Ethan Allen beige-on-beige showroom shitstorm. That's too many _Fuck You, Weevil, Says Life_ elements at once.

He's been thinking of ways to get the hell outta there without looking like he's conceding defeat. Standing up, saying something vague and apologetic—because, Echolls or no Echolls, these fine ladies invited him into their home, he’s got manners—and peacin' the fuck out, no looking back. There’s bound to be a bus somewhere headed back to his 'hood. An hour long wait for a fifteen minute ride. At least he'll get some reading done.

Nobody says anything and the quiet stretches out. By the time he realizes _he's_ the one who hasn't answered, Weevil's too far away to return to it. He peels the label on his beer, careful tearing the edges and scratching the rest, the sound of his fingernail on the glass the perfect soundtrack to the awkwardness.

Sam breaks the silence with a silvery chirp. “Let's play Truth or Dare.”

Echolls laughs, a too-loud dial tone, throwing his head back like this is the funniest shit ever suggested. “Please in the name of all that is holy, no drinking games.”

For once, Weevil’s in full agreement with shit for brains.

“Yeah, Sam. Let's not,” Erica murmurs. “I'm not sure I'm up for impromptu nudity.”

“Excuse me?” Echolls tilts his head, eyes eager and delighted.

“Don't ask,” she mutters, flicking at his arm.

He pouts.

“But I want to know things about you guys.” Sam sits up, bouncing along to the rhythm of her pleas. “Small talk is boring, I want truth, dangerous, tipsy truth. It's Friday night, it's still early! Come ooooooon. Don't tell me I got stuck with a bunch of party poopers.”

Even Sam's whine is cute instead of annoying. She stretches her legs out in front of her, pointing her bare feet like a ballerina, flipping that red hair over her shoulder. _Man._ Dumbo wouldn't have stood a chance against Weevil at his sixteen year-old prime. Hell, if this was last year, even, they'd be in her room right now, and that red hair would be all up in his mouth. But he is done with games, he wants somethin’ quiet, and the fact that he's resigned to the loss makes him relax.

Weevil smiles. “Just ask, sweetheart. I’ll answer whatever you got.”

Sam claps her hands, clasping them together, the shine of her nail polish a candy coating. “Promise you'll be truthful? Overly, embarrassingly truthful?”

He's charmed by her smile, the warmth of her coloring, and that hair, a wicked flame. There won't be any burning but he's gonna enjoy the glow. He eases back in his seat. “Sure, I'm an open book.”

“And it’s full of pictures and rhymes,” Echolls says, with the same smarmy pull of his lips he thinks is so cute—so fucking cute Weevil wants him to choke on his teeth.

Weevil sucks on his tongue and smiles back mean. _Yeah, there’s pictures, pendejo. Pictures of ya moms on her hands and knees sucking my hog like a Dyson_ but the comeback fades almost immediately when he remembers the actual Mrs. Echolls, smiling and offering him a popsicle on a hot day. Weevil ain’t the type to shit on a dead lady, even if her son was one of God’s mistakes. That’s a level of prick he hasn’t yet reached.

(Mrs. E. was always good to him. She gave him a pair of sneakers once, sneakers he thought would change his fuckin’ life. She must’ve overheard him talking to his grandma— _please, please, please_ , all that stuff. They were under the tree that Christmas, in a box wrapped with fancy silver wrapping, all perfect folded lines and invisible tape. A work of art.

They didn’t fit, the sneakers, they were too small, but he hung them up on his wall, practically prayed to them shits.)

“So guys, are we all in agreement? No-lie Friday?” The rest of them nod with varying levels of enthusiasm and Sam whoops, fist in the air. She leans in, speaking into her beer bottle as if it were a microphone and levels a hard stare at Echolls. “Logan, do you swear to be truthful in your answers?”

She directs the bottle his way and Echolls lowers his head to answer. “As much as I can. But some things might be too incriminating for candor. Can I plead the Fifth? Does the court find that allowable?”

“Sure.” Sam giggles.

He leans in further than he needs to. “Then I’m in.”

Her giggles melt to contemplative silence. Weevil is suddenly on alert—something about her green and honey eyes, the flash of them, they whisper trouble. “So,” she sits back and points at the two men. “Are you guys _actually_ friends?”

Echolls shrug-rolls his shoulder, “Yeah.”

Weevil winces, which could be taken as acquiescence. He likes that word, much better than agreement. Agreeing is too easy, like it’s _fair_ or something.

Sam’s mouth curves up into a sly smile. “Why does it seem like you're lying?”

“Can't help you there, girl. I’ve known this asshole forever.” No lies, just truth.

Echolls glides across the room like a telenovela villain, and sits on the arm of Weevil’s chair, close enough for Weevil to smell his expensive ass cologne, feel the dense weight of him like an unspoken challenge to throw down. The immediate instinct is to shove him the fuck away, but Weevil fights it, bites his tongue through the urge. Echolls doesn’t notice the tension, just smiles at the girls with that goofy grin of his. Everything is peachy fucking keen in white boy land.

“Yeah, Sam, I didn’t take you for a suspicious type, Eli and I are old pals. We used to watch Boy Meets World together after school.”

The girls laugh. It's a good sound. They’re buying it, whatever it is.

“You know, I wanted to look like Topanga soooo bad,” Sam says dreamily. “She was the prettiest.”

“Umm, newsflash, Red. You’re a beauty. One in a million girls.” Logan Echolls says it without a leer, simple, almost bashful and Sam, for all her boldness and loud, infectious laughter, looks down with a blush. Even Weevil believes him right now. Dude can turn like the weather.

Echolls and Sam twinkle at one another like strung-up Christmas lights. While Weevil is well aware that it’s been long enough to stop holdin’ grudges, he also knows it’s not his job to make things easy for white boys in general and Logan Echolls in particular. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. He clears his throat.

“Is that a real engagement ring, Sam?” Weevil leans in to look at it, whistling his appreciation with a loud, shrill taxi-hail blast.

Sam looks down on her hand, startled, a sudden red in her cheeks like a rash. “Yes.”

“That's quite a rock. When’s the wedding?”

“Umm… July.”

Weevil shifts to look at Echolls but the guy barely glances at him, he's too busy crumpling up a napkin and throwing it at Erica. It lands soft on her lap.

“Ricky. Your turn to ask a question,” Echolls says, with a gesture Weevil recognizes dimly from time spent with his deaf cousin Isaiah as _your turn_ in ASL.

Erica crosses her eyes. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Come on,” he cajoles, “You can come up with something.”

She sips her seltzer, licking the fizz off her lips after. “Fine.”

Erica puts her drink down slowly on the glass tablecloth. The glass slips a little on the condensation but stills. She crosses her arms, a crooked smile blooming. “Logan,” she pauses for a moment, “Where are you flying off to tomorrow?”

Weevil laughs, “Yeah, for real.”

Erica caught that shady shit too, he likes this girl. Smart. He leans in to bump fists with her. She returns it, after a lag, her hand small, knuckles cold, the hit slightly off-center.

Echolls looks down at his feet, shaking his head. He straightens his back, and sighs grandly before answering, “Croatia. A quick trip to see an old friend. I'll be back stateside in a couple of weeks.”

 _Da fuq?_   Weevil’s double take is sincere. He thought rich people went to France and only France. Or Switzerland, which was like France plus snow.

“What?” says Echolls, off of Weevil’s confused look. “I hear Dubrovnik’s lovely this time of year.”

Echolls takes a heavy pull of his beer, like a man about to give up the sauce.

Sam puts her chin on her fist and nods excitedly. “My friend Reyna went—it’s gorgeous. Her photos were amazing.”

“Stateside," Erica says, tilting her head. “But not Neptune? Then where?”

Echolls tsks-tsks her. “Nuh uh uh, that's another question.”

Sam turns to Weevil, flipping her hair over her shoulder again, must be a move. No hatin' though, it’s a good move. Every time she does it, the tickle of tuberose warms his nostrils. “Eli, you're next, what's your major?”

“Business, minor in Spanish.”

Echolls laughs at that. “ _Spanish_? That's cheating.”

“Yeah, does speaking English mean you write essays on Melville at the dinner table, Opie?”

Echolls raises an eyebrow. “Only on Sundays. You should read my treatise on Billy Budd. Right up your street.”

Weevil gestures towards Erica, “What about y—”

“Hey," Echolls interjects. “You skipped me. It’s _my_ turn to ask a question.” He places his hand on his chest in a fruity gesture straight out of an old movie.

Sam leans forward and touches Echolls' forearm, one slow swipe with her fingers. “You’re really into this, Logan. I thought you didn't want to play?”

“Oh, I wanna play.” Logan grins at her, leaning forward and balancing his chin on his balled up fists. He looks down at her hand, then back up slow, taking the scenic route. “Sam, have you ever cheated? Not on a test. You know what I mean.”

She shakes her head no, her lips lick-slick and pink.

“Do you want to?” he continues, raising his eyebrows, his eyes large and button-round.

Amazingly, Sam doesn't roll her eyes at that corny shit. She laughs and slaps Logan on the thigh, like he’s the biggest joker she’s ever met. “You’re so _bad_. Isn’t he bad?”

Weevil raises an eyebrow. He looks at Erica. Her eyes dart back and forth between the other two like she's watching animals at the zoo.

Better keep the questions going, he thinks. “Yo, Erica. What is your biggest fear?”

Her answer comes quick. “Clowns with knives.”

“That’s real specific.” Weevil squints and half-smiles, taking his thumb and pointer finger and running them down the corners of his mouth. “You encounter a lot of that in Canyon Portal?”

Her face is serious and pale, like a saint. “There was someone going around a few years ago—dressing as a clown and standing near stop signs on Orpheus Drive, the area near the park.”

Weevil laughs again but she’s hooked him, even he can hear the light tones of belief in his voice. “Canyon Portal, for real?”

“A clown with a knife,” Logan says slowly. “What kind of knife?”

“Oh my god, you so stupid.” Weevil throws a pillow at him, Echolls catches it like he’s been expecting it.

“What? This is important information, man. You think the Neptune Sheriff's Department is gonna do anything about it? This could be serious.”

“Why? What you gonna do, throw up a taser shaped bat sign? You know she don't do that shit no more.”

Echolls expression is a queasy shift between pissed and confused. He hadn't known. What was that about?

“No,” he says, in a way that plainly implies _asshole_. “I meant that since local law enforcement is not terribly interested in justice, sometimes, to protect your own, you have to take matters into your own hands. Preferably with a willing group providing an assist. You and I know plenty about that, don’t we, little buddy?”

“Wow. Are you going to round up a mob?” Sam balances that perfect face on her balled fist.

“Yeah. With pitchforks and torches,” Echolls smarms.

“See, I thought she meant,” Weevil snaps his fingers, pretend-thinking, “...the kind of mob that dances in malls and shit.”

“A flash mob!” Sam shouts.

“Yeah, that seems more your style, Jazz Hands.”

They laugh and Echolls shakes his head.

“The clown didn't have a knife,” Erica says.

The room quiets down. She stares at her hand.

“He _could’ve_ had a knife. Maybe the clown suit had, you know... _pockets_.” Erica scratches her nose with her knuckle. “A couple of young women disappeared around then so it always seemed connected. Runaways, mostly. Police never found out who did it.”

“The person doing the abducting or the clown?”

Erica doesn't answer Echolls’ question, not outright; she laughs and it’s nervous and even, way too even. Weevil looks around and it’s like they all want to respond but no one seems to be able to. Sam’s face is frozen in an open-mouthed look of expectation, waiting, and it’s almost funny, before the pause deepens and her expression becomes grotesque. Erica sighs.

“Either one. It was on the news, gr-r-rainy, uh, what to do you call it... Surveillance! Surveillance footage. Didn't look like a prank, not deliberate enough. He's just standing, standing on the street. Like the clown in that Stephen King thing.”

“It,” Logan mumbles automatically. “Tim Curry in the movie.”

“You guys. I have goosebumps.” Sam holds up her arm.

“That’s fucked up.” Weevil shakes his head. “I’ll tell you what though, that shit would never fly in La Pobla. We’d have found Bozo and given him the beatdown of his red nosed life before the week was OUT.”

“The pitchfork mob?” Erica's eyes are contemplative and he can’t tell from her tone if she disapproves or if she's getting off on it.

“We take care of our own. Local law enforcement ain't gonna do shit, they'd love it if we all killed each other. No, my hood is pretty quiet. Safe. Safer than you think. We’re poor but we got pride.”

“So nothing weird happens in your neighborhood? No clowns?” Sam raises her hands in the air and wiggles her fingers. “Flash mobs? Mysterious happenings? Unsolved mysteries?”

“Nah.” Weevil pauses and smiles to himself. “Actually. Some assholes burnt down the community pool once. That was fucked up. Never got caught either.”

Sam eyes widen. “How do you burn down a pool? Was it empty?”

“I think he means the pool complex, Sam,” Erica clarifies.

“But that’s so dumb! Why would anyone do that?”

Weevil looks at Echolls, who’s staring at a spot on the wall, blank expression on his face. “ _Someone_ that wanted a whole community to go without a pool in the summer, you know the ones who aren’t rich enough to have their own pools.”

Echolls’ eyes snap to his. “Yeah, it’s a shame how gang violence has a domino effect.”

“I helped put a car through an atrium,” Erica says, the way you might say, _I went to Disneyland and it was a’ight._

“Erica!" Sam giggle-yelps.

Weevil claps. "Dayum, Canyon Portal!”

“Whaaaaat?” Echolls laughs, a high wheezy sound and Weevil looks up at him, startled. Weevil laughs too, then. He doesn’t even know why.

Erica rubs her upper arm, biting the corner of her smile. She pushes her glasses up her long nose. “My turn. Eli. Who was your first love and no, family doesn't count."

“Lilly Kane.” He doesn’t even have to think about it. Breathe oxygen. Live in California. Her hair was blonde. Eyes were shades of blue and green. Lilly Kane.

“Pretty name,” Sam coos. “I like this question. Logan, same one, who was your first love?"

Echolls doesn’t hesitate either. “Lilly Kane.”

Weevil doesn’t know why it hurts, not like he expected a different answer. Not like it couldn’t be true. The girls look at each other.

“Ah... oh. Must be some lady.” Sam exhales, as if the mysteries of the universe had been explained.

If there was a moment, Echolls doesn't acknowledge it. He doesn't cough or blush or blink. He simply moves past it, with an ease Weevil is envious of but would probably never want.

“Rrrrrricky Bobby. Ever stolen anything? Name the biggest thing.” Echolls holds out his arms, like a stretch, then crosses them in front of him.

She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “A car.”

Weevil raises his eyebrow. “You playin'?”

“I wasn’t going to put my own car through an atrium.”

Echolls guffaws, wiggling his fingers in her direction. “Not Another Teen Miscreant starring Rickie Sarkisian. I'd fund that movie.”

Weevil shifts in his seat, he can feel his cheeks smile before his mouth does. “Now you got me curious, girl. You've been to jail?”

“Yes. Drunk tank.”

She seems embarrassed but also… what was that word? Wistful? There’s definitely a story to this one.

He looks her over again; her long, thin face, with a nose that’s almost too big for it, her large, sad brown eyes. The purple and blue shades underneath them, making her look exhausted, fragile. Full lips, top and bottom, like a ripe, red circle. Everything about her is exaggerated, stretched out, soft, but still works together. She’s like a painting of some beautiful woman from a long ago. Not someone he’d see on the streets of Neptune, in a bikini, walking a dog, going into a boutique. But a lady, next to flowers, her hand at her neck or cheek, eyes looking straight ahead. Not the kind with a stare that follows him around, the kind where he don’t really matter. Where he’s the least important thing.

Erica considers Echolls. “Have _you_ ever cheated?”

“On a test?”

“No, not on a test.”

Echolls breathes in harshly, then turns to her, squinting one eye and raising an eyebrow. “Technically?”

 _This asshole._ “Come on, dog. Either you have or you haven’t fucked around wit somebody when you was with someone else.”

“Then, no.” His stare is impassive, final. He opens his hands briefly, opens and closes his fingers, then relaxes them back onto his knees.

“What about you, Eli?”

“Me what, Princess?”

Sam grins slowly. “Cheated, have you ever?”

He glances over at Echolls, his eyes are hard but his shoulders are relaxed. He’s still staring at his hands. He’s clenching them. Opening them. Finger by finger like he’s peeling a banana.

“Nah. I’m a faithful guy.”

Echolls looks up slowly. They stare at each other. Echolls’ eyes narrow, not like high noon, it’s gradual. The punk's more muscular than he used to be, probably goes to some billion dollar gym, works out with a ‘roided up trainer, drinks champagne after. Nah, not that. Gym goes to him. Like everything else. Logan Fucking Echolls. Doesn’t work, never needs to, but has to look like he does and pays out the ass for the privilege. Weevil isn't as fit as he used to be but he ain't worried. He fights better. He's had to.

Sam jumps up. The mirage-like shimmer of pre-violence dissipates. “We need more beer,” she says brightly. “Logan, come with me to the store.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He jumps up like nothing's going and spins around to Erica and Weevil, “Need anything? Rickie? Weevs?”

Erica frowns. “Who's Weevs?”

“Eli,” Echolls answers, eyes big and innocent.

Weevil points to himself.

“Is that another inside joke?” Sam says, leaning against the doorframe and toeing into her shoes.

“You should hear what he calls me,” Logan quips and the girls laugh.

They head out, Echolls skipping behind Sam like something out of an old movie. Not a grade A douchebag but a sweet kid off to see his grandma. The door slams.

After one minute or two of awkward-as-fuck silence, Erica speaks. “Do you want some water?”

“Sure, with ice if you got some.”

“I’ll check.”

Weevil walks around the space. Their place is nice, clean, and covered with framed photos. Some of Erica, some of Sam, some together. There’s one of Sam making an exaggerated pout and holding up what looks like a coconut, but upon closer inspection appears to be a shrunken head. He grimaces. Fake or not, people got no respect for the dead.

Another photo, Erica with an older lady who looks just like her. Must be her mom. Instead of staring at the camera, she’s staring at her daughter, the faint crease of worry on her face.

“This your ma?”

Erica squints over from the kitchen, cracking ice into a tall glass. “Yup.”

“You look just like her.”

“Thanks. She’s the best.”

In the back corner of the living room, like some sort of shrine, there’s a sweet video game setup. He’s standing there eyeballing it when Erica comes over to stand next to him, glass in hand.

“You’re just like Logan. Naturally drawn to the gaming console.”

She hands him a water with funky shaped ice in it, smiles, and walks down the hall to the bedrooms.

“Thank you, mami.” Weevil sips from his glass and checks out the games. He tips the cases back with his finger, enjoying the sound.

“Sorry about the ice,” Erica yells from the other room.

“What about it?”

She comes back in, having changed into a Hearst sweatshirt—which everybody and their cousins seemed to own around here—and shorts. Her legs are as skinny as her arms.

“They’re penises.”

“Say what now?”

“The ice, it’s ummm… penis ice cubes.”

Weevil spits the ice back in his glass. “I can’t drink this.”

“Are you serious?”

“As cancer.”

“It’s just ice, it will melt. Into non-penises-”

Weevil puts the glass down on one of the coffee table coaster with head shake. “Yeah, sorry, girl. Can’t do it.”

“Okay, I’ll drink it.” Erica picks up his glass and drinks from it. She licks her lips and puts it back down. “Someone stole our ice tray and Sam thought it would be a conversation starter or something. Logan doesn't have a problem with it.”

Weevil purses his lips and nods. He bites back the urge to bite back.

“I don’t know you at all but you don’t seem like a homophobe.”

He shakes his head after a measured pause.

“So… cultural difference?”

Weevil studies her face for signs that she's fucking with him. Her gaze is steady, those wide-set sad eyes of hers serious. He sighs, rubbing his mouth with his thumb.

“I’m pretty sure one of my little brothers is that way, it don’t make me love him less. But I ain’t putting no dick ice in my mouth.”

“Got it.” She sips the water and then bites the ice, making it crack. The sound is loud in the room, startling them both into laughter which grows once the second meaning of it hits.

Still smiling, Weevil looks around, cracks his knuckles. “So, about Logan Echolls. He come here over a lot?”

“Sometimes. He’s got a pretty busy schedule with his five thousand classes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he wanted to graduate early.”

“Echolls is graduating early?”

“Huh. You meant it when you said you didn’t know him. Logan _graduated_ —like last week. He’s done. I don’t even think he’s coming back to get his diploma in June, so he is out of here.”

“Yeah, we ain’t exactly pen pals.”

“I have to say, you guys have a very strange rapport.”

He reaches out and grabs something off the mantle—a figurine of a bird— and plays with it nervously. A few seconds later, the head comes clean off. His immediate instinct is to put it in his pocket, hide it away, instead he says “Oh shit” and holds it out to her. Erica looks at the body and the head in his palm and laughs. Her hand hovers over his for a moment, like God and Adam in that painting, before grabbing the pieces from his hand and throwing them in the trash.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s been broken like three times now, we just keep trying to Krazy Glue it back on.”

“Sorry.”

The spot is bare now. The absence of dust is the only sign that it was there.

“Is it too cliche to offer you some weed?”

Weevil glances at Erica, her face is red, her eyes too big. Practically black.

"Cliche because I am a thug who must want a 40 and a joint to round out the night?"

"No," she says, swallowing slowly. "'Cause we're college students?"

Now he feels embarrassed. He nods instead of apologizing, figuring why the fuck not? Kids are out of town. “Yeah. Fine. Sounds good to me.”

“Okay. Be right back.” 

She exits the living room, tucking her hair behind her ears. His eyes drift back to the mantle.

“By the way, I don’t normally offer pot to random strangers but you’re a friend of Logan’s and I trust his judgment—” Erica’s voice carries from the back, the sound of a drawer opening and closing.

“Really? You haven’t met that blond gorilla he keeps as a pet?”

“Who?” Erica returns with a small tin box, turquoise and gold, ornate patterns on the top. Her feet are bare.

“Nothing. Just sayin' Logan Echolls doesn’t have the greatest taste in friends.”

Her eyes have a downward slant on the corners, giving her a pensive, sleepy look. She tilts her head. “Present company excluded, right?”

“Yeah. You seem a’ight.”

Erica smiles. “Let's smoke outside.”

Weevil touches her elbow, then pulls back. "What about your landlords?”

“They’re fine with it. They’re a nice hippie couple. This is their stuff actually.”

“Nice.” _White people._

He follows her through the glass doors behind some gauzy curtains. Erica sits on a stool next to a cafe-style table, puts down her little tin box, opens it and sets everything out. Weed, papers, matches. She rolls a joint deftly and lights it, each movement precise and studious. She’s had practice, enough to have a style to it.

It’s sweet out there, on the terrace. They’ve got flowers, plants, and cushioned chairs. Weevil leans over to the planters, bends down to smell the honeysuckle.

“I like the flowers.”

“Thanks. I did the gardening.”

“No shit.”

She passes him the lit joint, he takes a deep hit, feels the crinkled up paper burn of it in his lung and exhales.

“Yeah. I love to do it. It’s relaxing.”

“Why honeysuckle?” he asks, handing the joint back.

“For the butterflies and the scent.” Erica licks her lips. “You know what kind of flower it is? You're a nature lover!”

“Nah, when I was a teenager I did landscaping gigs for extra cash.”

“Ah. I see.” She smokes her joint, elegantly, like a cigarette.

“Didn’t Logan tell you? I worked at his house. One of my first jobs. My grandma was his family’s maid.”

“No.” She passes the joint back.

“I’m surprised. It's what he usually leads with.”

“He just said you were old friends.”

“Right. No offense, but that guy ain’t my friend.”

Erica’s face has no judgement in it. She smiles, tentatively, looking about five years younger. Like a teenager. “Maybe you’re _his_ friend.”

“Nah. Can’t help it if I know that dickhead. He’s always around. Or I’ve just always been there. Who the fuck knows.”

“His witness.”

Weevil snorts. “I’m my own witness. Dude can pay somebody to do the job.”

His next hit is another deep one and he’s way out of fucking practice because he coughs. He hands the joint back and she puts it down, resting it in the groove of an old-ass ashtray.

A breeze picks up and the wind chime shimmers with sound. Erica pulls her sweatshirt over her head, revealing a worn-looking tank top with yellow and blue paint stains. On it is a drawing of a cat curled around a dog, the faded letters underneath urging donations to the local ASPCA.

Her tattoo curls out from under the wide strap of her tank; it’s bigger than he’d initially thought. The ivy leaves climb her neck, shoulder blade, the taut, muscular curve of her upper arm. It has a blurry, diffused look—like a watercolor—painted, rather than drawn.

“Your tat. I couldn’t see it at the bar.”

“Mmm?” Her hand flies up to her neck.

“Can I see?”

Erica nods. Weevil scoots closer as she lolls her head to the side, lengthening her neck and lowering her shoulder to display her tattoo better. He touches the borders reverently. “It's beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“I did the stencil and Jimmy Forrest did the shading and color choices.”

“Oh yeah, he's good. He did my friend Pito’s sleeve. It’s amazing, a fucking dragon, breathing fire, flames shooting right across to his chest.” Weevil mimics a fireball explosion with his hand.

“Huh. Jimmy's a friend of my mom's. Well, former student. She's an art teacher. At Pan.”

“Shit. Small world. So what's the story behind it?”

“Most people ask why thorns?”

She touches it, the thorns at her collarbone and traces them with her fingertips up her neck and back to the base of her skull.

“Come here.”

He comes closer she guides his hand to the side of her head. Her hair is damp and baby-fine there; fine but not sparse. She has so much of it, he might’ve missed the way the skin of her scalp goes from smooth to raised, alarmingly thick, like a raised, winding road. A head injury, a scar.

“What happened?” Weevil coughs, that’s how dry his throat is. He wants to get the feeling out, it’s trapped-tight—furious.

“I was in a car accident in high school. We’d been partying in L.A. and my boyfriend had been driving drunk and we got sideswiped by another drunk driver and… boom, crash.”

 _Holy shit._ Weevil doesn't bother asking about the boyfriend. It’s there in her face. She’s giving him the answer.

“I was out for 447 hours - that’s how they count the time you’re out from a TBI.”

“What’s that?”

“Traumatic Brain Injury.”

“Fuck me.”

“Yeah, I was out and when I woke up it took me awhile to get back. My brain, uh, needed time to recover. My body too.”

“Like rehabilitation?”

“Yeah.” Erica nods and smiles crookedly, putting her hand up to her lips. “I could barely talk. Freaked everybody out. I told one of my old friends that I was going to bite them with my ‘dentals’ and then I bit them like their hand was corn on the cob.”

Weevil keeps touching the scar tissue, it’s knotty and thick, he never would’ve known it was there. She must never wear her hair up.

“My parents decided to move here and start over to make the transition easier for me. When I started remembering better, one of my old best friends stopped seeing me, told me that I wasn’t myself anymore. My parents were so mad, you're not supposed to say things like that to people like me.”

“People like you?”

“You know, who’ve had a brain injury.”

Erica’s voice is dreamy now, less raspy. “How can I not be me? It's confusing. Old me was quite different than new me. But they're both me. Fundamentally. So yeah. Bye bye old gang. Had to start again from scratch.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with you. You look good.”

She looks at him with those big eyes, and does that thing where you can’t tell if a person is laughing, sighing or just exhaling. “I fuck up all the time. Words. I get frustrated over dumb things. Forget things. If you spend more time with me you’d start to notice. Sam does.”

“Sam?”

“Oh yeah, we’ve been roommates since freshman year.”

“How do you fuck up?”

“Sometimes, I struggle for words, I forget them, get a, uh, frustrated.”

He can’t imagine it. She’s so thoughtful, what's that word, _innately_ gentle, even her smart-assed comments don’t seem that hard.

“Echolls? He knows too?”

“Sure. I don’t make friends easily so… ”

“Yeah.” He reaches out and touches the spot behind her ear again. He stops. “Sorry.”

“Go ahead.”

Weevil runs his finger up the scar tissue, a perfect line, like Erica is cake that got cut.

_Oh, man her parents._

When his mom died, he was a stone, refused to feel the ache. But he still remembers his abuela’s reaction to the news, her eyes filling up with tears, looking up at him from the chair she was sitting in, the phone pressed up to her ear, saying “Mi nena esta muerta.” _My baby is dead._ Because his moms was his abuela’s baby and even though that baby was a grown woman, with children of her own, and a death-causing drug habit that left her half-naked with a bullet to the head in a Nevada trailer park—to his abuela, in that moment, Cristina Dolores Navarro was nothing but _her baby_. The one she’d carried and given a name to. And Eli was a man. He had to be a man.

He isn’t touching Erica’s scar anymore, he’s stroking her hair. It’s long and fine, a light brown color, it smells like baby shampoo. The kind he used to use on his brothers. They’re still boys. He’s made sure of that.

Erica continues, softly. “My memories are a mess. The year before the accident, the year after. The stuff I do remember, I remember like a movie, like something that I watched rather than lived.”

Weevil nods.

She laughs, and it’s empty. “I got so excited once because I remembered all these moments from a high school dance, which I'd spent getting blasted, I mean, just— _pbbbbfffttt_. Turns out the reason the memories were so vivid is that an old friend gave me photos from that night. So it’s not the _memory_. It’s the photos. I built memories out of those photos.”

Erica puts her fingers up to her face. “I don't remember a lot of random things. Apparently, I used to be this huge slut,” she says, with a laugh, one quick blast. “I wish I could remember _that_. Anyway, blah blah short story is I had this idea that I could commemorate my time as sleeping beauty with a briar patch. I’m so original.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, I could’ve come up with something better.”

“Not that. I’m sorry that this happened to you.”

“Don't be. But thank you.” She leans over slowly to pick up her glass and take a sip of her lemonade. “I don’t remember the people that died. Well, not much anyway. By all accounts I’m much more chill than I used to be, which is atypical apparently. Most people get mean. Start littering.”

“What?”

“Not kidding, this girl I knew in group broke up with her boyfriend because he didn’t understand why she’d throw her garbage in the street.”

“Did she understand?”

“Nope.”

“What do you do? You break shit?”

“No. I mean, I have my little temper tantrums now and again but my grand theft auto days are over. Heh. I think the hardest part about all this has just been figuring out what makes me me. Like, I like pot but hate to drink. I have to study harder than everybody else because my memory is so bad. I'm not so great at gaming but like to do it anyway. I really like repotting plants.”

Weevil laughs. They both do. It feels so good, laughing with this girl with not enough memories.

Erica picks up the joint carefully with her nails doing most of the grip-work. Her hand shakes as she lights another match.

“I really need to get a lighter,” she says through gritted teeth, trying to hold in the smoke. Erica squints, then finally exhales smoothly, offering him the joint. He accepts it but doesn’t bring it to his lips.

“Are you even allowed to smoke, with that—” Weevil gestures to her head.

“Not really. No.”

Weevil puts the joint back in the ashtray without smoking it. “Playing with fire, girl.”

“God, I hope so.” Erica stretches her arms over head. She’s all angles and bones; sharp elbows and thin, fragile looking wrists. “When I hit thirty-four, I’ll have been this me as long as I wasn’t. That’s my comfortable-in-my-own-skin deadline.”

He nods.

She continues, her finger tracing the line of her bottom lip as she speaks. “I don't know. I don’t know anything. I don’t know why I’m talking.”

Somehow he’s wound up with her hand in his. Her hands are slim, her fingers long, like his cousin Paula who used to play the piano over at the Echolls’ place whenever they were out of the country. He used to sit underneath it and listen to it, feel the music in his chest. The chords landing and breaking apart, soft and loud. Erica doesn’t play, he can tell by her fingertips, which are smooth like stones. He lets himself look at her, those eyes, so dark. Weevil hasn’t seen eyes that dark since his ma, where all he could see was his own reflection in them.

He leans forward and kisses Erica’s forehead. Weevil doesn’t want to kiss her mouth or the thorns on her collarbone. She is too much like him. She’s lost a part of herself, commemorated it on her body. He understands that. Understands what it is to lose the past, to have never owned it in the first place.

Logan Echolls is right, she is a longer story and Weevil isn’t the ending to it.

“Come on, it’s not that bad.” She squeezes his hand, misreading whatever’s on his face. “Everybody’s got something. The people in that house, the one over there, the people Logan and Sam are buying beer from.”

Somewhere up in the trees, a bird starts squawking. Fucking birds. _Go to sleep, you winged shithead. Do they sleep? Standing up or in their nests? Fuck, he’s high. This is some good shit._ Weevil laughs his dumbest laugh and she does too, not a copy of it, but something complimentary.

Erica stands up and gestures for him to take her chair. He sits in it without comment, she grabs the other one and pulls it closer. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches her take the roach from the ashtray again. She offers it to him and says, “No, thanks, Ma.” Weevil tilts his head back, up to the sky, counts the stars in time to the music coming from inside the apartment.

“It's a mockingbird.”

“Yeah?” he says.

“It's singing for a mate.”

“That’s one way to do it.”

“Yeah.”

“And if he don’t find one, will he shut the fuck up?”

She smiles into the darkness. “Nah, he'll keep on singing, sometimes late into the year.”

“That's some depressin’ shit.”

“Nooo, it's beautiful, hopeful. He'll sing until he finds the one. Imagine if people did that?”

He zones out for a bit. His mouth is dry, his gums. Weevil reaches for his glass and drinks slowly. “2004 was a shitty year, you should be happy you missed it.”

“Funny. Logan said the same thing.”

 

* * *

 

They talk about everything and nothing, their words punctuated with dry lip licks and weed-stoked giggles. She’s cool, this girl, chill. He’s suddenly understanding the appeal of the no-drama, no-sex hang with another lady that ain’t a relative. His back starts aching, he reaches behind him and presses on the spot, a hard knot, stone-like, on his right side, underneath his rib cage. He notices she’s rubbing her right eye.

“Tired?”

“Thirsty, actually.” Erica coughs, then squints at him. “Would you mind grabbing me a water?”

“Yeah, sure. No problem. I'll go.” He stands and his leg has fallen asleep, so he stumbles back, nearly toppling his glass off the table. He catches it and Erica slow claps.

“Awesome save, dude.”

“All about the save. Be right back.”

Weevil slides the glass door behind the gauzy curtains and walks inside, the weed cushioning his footfall on the carpet, making each step deeper and softer, as if he were sinking. He is deep inside himself, dimly aware of motion, of how much more work it actually is now that he has to think about it. It’s all good though, nothing can fuck with his high right now. It’s like he’s inside a protective shell where everything is fucking irie.

Echolls is there, on the far end of the room, facing away from him, leaning on the other side of the kitchen island. One hand on the counter, the other resting on his hip, wrist bent at a weird angle. There’s a large bag on the counter, paper inside plastic, tipped on its side, empty. Echolls’ eyes are reflected in the kitchen window—blank and hooded. His mouth is hanging open in that dumb, reptile way. The hand on the counter twitches and Echolls whines dimly, angling back as his hips cant forwards. Weevil is formulating some smack talk when a manicured hand comes up from behind the island, over Echolls’. A hand rocking a big, fat rock.

Weevil bites his bottom lip hard, he hadn’t meant to. His eyes shift back up Logan’s arm, to his shoulder, and past it, to their dim reflection in the window. Echolls looks back at him, panting, with the smallest give of a smile. Hips push, and below, clearer now, so clear Weevil’s uncertain how he’d missed it the first time, the wet, sloppy noise of someone’s face getting fucked.

He’s got two empty glasses in his hands. Aim and throw right, watch them smash the window and rain glass all over that smug, rich face. But fucker’s not alone, that’s the thing, he’s never alone. There’s always someone else getting hurt alongside.

Weevil tightens his jaw so hard he feels something click in his face. The glasses go nowhere.

Logan Echolls never breaks eye contact, but his head rolls to the side, then slightly back, throat bobbing. At that, Weevil turns and stops, biting his lip open this time, then forces his legs to get gone.

Weevil slides the balcony doors open, then shuts them behind himself. A little harder than needed maybe but also necessary. As a complaint, as a warning. As a little old _fuck you, you son of a bitch_.

He sits down with an oomph and his legs fall open. His head pounds and he rubs the part of his forehead that’s hit hardest by the pain. Maybe he shouldn’t have smoked, shit seems weirder than it actually is. Maybe he needs to get out more. He squints over at Erika, whose eyebrows are raised high in question. Her front tooth is crossed, hadn’t noticed before. It’s cute. He tongues his own front teeth.

“You okay there?”

“Sure.” Weevil touches the cut on his lip, looks down at the red on the pad of his finger. He licks it off, unthinkingly, sobering at the copper tang.

It’s a nice night. Not too cold, taste of salt in the air. Perfect for a BBQ with his friends. None of this Little Neptune shit.

“I can’t swim. You think it’s too late to learn?”

She turns her head slightly. “No. It’s never too late to learn new things. 

“You think so?”

“Yeah. You do too, right? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in school right now, when other guys might have given up.”

Weevil smiles involuntarily and tries to swallow it, schooling his face back to serious.

“Thanks.” He coughs, his throat feels like sandpaper. “Damn, I’m thirsty.”

Erica laughs.

“What?”

“You forgot.” Erika gestures behind her, towards the kitchen. “You came back with empty glasses.”

“Oh shit, the water. Sorry.”

“No worries, I’ll go.”

She stands up to go and so does he, reaching out for her arm. “Nah, Ma. Let me do it.”

“It’s okay.” Erika takes the glasses from the table where he’d left them, and slides the door open. He follows. The room is empty. Dimly, down the hall, Sam laughs and Logan Echolls talks—low and powder-soft. Sweet bullshit or poison, it’s all the same to his ear.

“I guess they’re back. Do you still want a beer?”

“Yeah, I’d love one.”

There’s a thump coming from down the hall, like a body hitting a wall, and a high _whoooooop_ which dissolves into laughter.

“SO, your friend’s getting married, huh?”

Erica takes a beer out of the fridge and sets it down on the kitchen island/counter with a clattering thud. “Sorry, it slipped out of my hand. That wasn’t, like, a dramatic response or anything.”

She opens the bottle and Weevil extends his hand to take it from her. Erica pours the beer into a glass instead and holds it out to him when she’s done.

“Thanks.”

Logan and Sam are still laughing away but the sound narrows down to a murmur, followed by a long groan. Another thump.

“She’s engaged. Yes.”

Erica takes out a water bottle and chugs.

Weevil raises his eyebrow and sips at his beer. _Thump_.

“To a guy from back home. Her high school sweetheart.”

A thump and a long keen.

“Sounds like true love,” Weevil sighs.

Erica looks him dead in the eye, her voice lower and steelier than he’s heard so far. “Last week, she found out he’d been cheating on her for the past year. With an old friend of hers from back home. Someone she used to describe to me as a sister.”

“Oh shit.”

She nods and sips at her water, wiping her mouth with only three fingers like a little kid.

The keening is just moans now, soft and insistent.  Weevil tilts his head and raises his glass high. “To your girl, then.”

Thumping then thuds, the unmistakable rhythms of fucking. He works hard to not see it, the images those noises are conjuring. It’s embarrassing because Weevil ain’t no prude, one of his boys banged some chick right next to him once while he was playing The Last of Us and he didn’t bat an eyelash. That game was the shit though, so tuning them out had been no thing at all.

No. It’s embarrassing because this is like a porno where the girl is crazy fine but her sex partner’s some fat dude with a mustache, and the fat dude has Echoll’s face _and_ he keeps winking when the camera pans to him. And Weevil’s hard-on ain’t going away despite that fucked-up visual. He coughs and shifts discreetly, hoping Erica isn’t the observant type.

Sam moans and her moans are words—yes’s, drawled out and heavy, and Weevil can’t help it, he laughs. It’s not loud enough for them to hear, he thinks, but Erica sees him, the way his shoulders are shaking from the effort to not bust out with a crazy _ha ha ha_ and it gets her too.  She covers her mouth and bends over laughing at the kitchen counter, her elbows making a squeaking noise on the surface. Weevil’s practically wheezing, he doesn’t recognize his own laugh. Sam chants _don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop_ , he can’t hear anything from Logan at all, motherfucker a sex mime, and Weevil’s laughing like his lungs are gonna bust.

“Oh my god, stop,” Erica manages, which makes him fall down on the ground trying not scream with laughter and she blushes tomato-red, clutching her stomach, eyes squeezed tight. Weevil’s abs _hurt_ from keeping it in. She grabs his hand and pulls him up, rushing him outside, all shush and _please_. As soon as that cool air hits his face, he fucking loses it again, this time with some volume, and man, it feels so good to laugh this hard, over something stupid.

“Oh no,” Erica whispers, her eyes as big as plates.

“What?”

“I think I’m going to pee my pants.”

Weevil sobers, the smile noodling on his face, “Well, whatcha waiting for, girl? Go to the bathroom.”

Erica hops around. “The bathroom is next to Sam’s room. I can’t.”

He busts out cackling again and she does too. Erica grabs his hands to steady herself. She takes a huge breath, lets go of his hands, slides the door open and runs inside covering her ears.

Weevil sprawls out, still laughing, and slowly, in feathery-soft layers, comes back to himself. His high is dimmer now—kind.

By the edge of the terrace, where the honeysuckle is thickest, a fat, fuzzy bumblebee weaves slowly through the flowers. It lands, and Weevil leans in to watch it work, its little insect-hands or whatever moving fast, and wishes he could pluck it with his fingers. Pet it. Hear it talk.

The door slides open again and Erica jumps out.

“Damn, that was fast.”

“I pretended that I had to swim through an elaborate underwater tunnel system with a sacred artifact in my hands while I held my breath.”

“Say what?”

She mime-swims, scrunching up her face as if she’s holding her breath. A breeze rustles through the trees and her hair moves too, blowing across her face. She leans against the balcony railing, then leans back, stepping away to face him fully, bringing her hand up to her face to bite her fingernails. “I didn’t hear anything on the way back. Maybe they were done?”

Weevil nods slowly. “Then I’d say he’s more talk than action. I’d have gone for an all nighter.”

Her laughter is wild like her hair is wild; half wind, half static, her hand poised in mid-air as if she’s about to play the piano. Weevil stands and moves closer. He pushes her hair behind her ear and lets his finger trail down her jawline to her chin. Her mouth is lovely and wide.

“Do you want me to show you what that’s like?”

She closes her eyes and the tiny veins make her eyelids look violet. The tremulous beauty waiting to be kissed and opened up like morning glory to the sun. Which is a line. A line from one of those Spanish-language romance novelas his abuela kept on the bedside shelf next to her bible and her mentolato. A line the rich man says to the poor girl before he takes her to bed and ruins her life.

Weevil’s not stupid. He knows from the flutter of her eyelashes, how tightly she presses her lips together, the way she moves her head to the right once, just once, firm, that the answer is no. He steps away.

“My bad.”

He moves away and looks down at the flowers. The bee is still working, it looks drunk as hell.

“I’m sorry.”

Weevil thumbs his bottom lip, glancing up at her. “Why you sorry? I’m good, Ma.”

“I’d like to. You have beautiful eyes.”

“Thanks?” He laughs and brings his head down on his hands. “But. You don’t date the help.”

“What? No. Believe me, if I did date, I would date you.”

“But what then?” Weevil shakes his head and rubs his chin. “Forgive me if I feel a crazy speech coming on. I get the weirdest deja vu where Logan Echolls’ lady friends are involved.”

“I don’t date. Anyone. I tried a while back, after the accident. It never felt right. I couldn’t stop watching it happen. Like it was happening to someone else. A boy I was trying to date on top of me, moving, and me… watching it. In my head.”

He moves back in, carefully, and takes her hand. His movements deliberate and gentle, not wanting to spook her or give her the wrong idea.

“Maybe it was him.”

Erica leans back a little and Weevil lowers his voice, keeps it soft.

“Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing. I’m not saying that to get in your pants, like, oh girl, let me show you how a real man do, or something stupid. I mean, it might not be you at all. That’s all I’m saying.”

Erica keeps her hand in his, but there’s no tension in it. When she finally looks at him, he sees tiny bits of glimmer in her eyelashes, more magic than tears. She smiles and the distance between that smile and what’s happening in her eyes is too much.

“That wasn’t it. I know how it was supposed to feel. I tried with others. I just don’t want to. Not anymore. I like people and I love having friends but that’s all I can manage at the moment. I’m fine with it. I don’t miss it.”

“Logan knows?”

“Yeah. I think he was relieved actually.”  
  
“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. He seemed a lot more relaxed after that. I think he doesn’t have a lot of platonic female friends.”

“Huh. What’s your major again? Psych?”

“No. Economics. Sam is the Psych and pre-Med major.”

He whistles, low and impressed, and rubs her wrist with his thumb. There’s a mole there, shaped like a little snowman.

“So is it true that you and Logan were in love with the same girl?”

Weevil snorts. “Something like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we share a taste in women. And they tend to choose him.”

Erica watches him carefully, like she’s waiting for him to slip. He laughs.

“I used to think it was because he’s rich.” He bites the inside of his cheek. “It would be easier, if it was just because I was poor. Or brown. But the harder answer is probably true. They had more in common with him than me.”

An ice cream truck cruises down the street blaring its jingle, dissonant and faded.

“What the fuck? It’s gotta be past midnight.”

“Makes me want an ice cream sandwich.”

Weevil licks his lips. “Fuck yeah. Straaaaawberry, yo.”

Erica nods slowly. “Let’s go chase it.”

They don’t move. The ice cream truck stops and low voices come from the street.

“Someone’s buying midnight ice cream, lucky, lucky, lucky,” she says dreamily.

Weevil nods, smiles, because it’s great. All of it. The truck starts up and drives off, the sound fading when it turns at the corner.

“I’m going to go put on some music. Be right back.”

She’s not lying, she’s back in less than a minute. Soft rock music plays, not his usual stuff but in the context of the evening, it works.

“What is this?”

“Coldplay.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“They sang that song... Yellow? Everyone knows that song.”

Weevil shakes his head. “Never heard of ‘em.”

“Yeah, you know them.” Erica sings, quiet yet sure, “Look at the stars, see how they shine for you? And every—”

“Oh yeah, ha. I thought that song was called See How They Shine or Stars or some shit.”  
  
“This is that CD. Will you dance with me when it plays? Which it will… any minute now.”

He doesn’t dance. Not like that. He moshes, he bashes against other dudes in a pit, he lets ladies wind their way around him like ribbons while he stands stock-still. But she’s smiling with that crossed tooth and he’s a chump.

“Yeah. As long as you don’t mind getting your feet stepped on.”

“I won’t mind.”

“A’ight.”

“I can’t believe you don’t have a girlfriend.”

“I know, right? I’m handsome, respectful to women, get high praise for my bedroom game.”

“Oh, you have good Yelp reviews too?”

“The best. Really, it’s a fucking crime I’ve been single for so long.”

They laugh.

“So what’s the problem then?”

He scratches his nose, smacks his lips. “Not up for it right now. Got so much going with school and my brothers… It’s just ain’t in my sights, you know?”

“Right.” She holds out her hand. “There’s the song.”

Weevil rises to his feet and takes her in his arms. She’s tall, taller than him, with long, slender arms he can tell, feel, are strong, not weak. Not weak at all. They sway in a circle, relaxed, listening.

“Besides, I don’t want to fuck around. I want something for keeps.”

“How will you know? I always wonder that. How does anyone know these things?”

“You just do. You feel it. One day, Imma meet her, the one, and she’s gonna love me for me. No question, no hesitation. Her for me. I won’t have to write a paper to explain it, it’ll be plain to see.”

“That sounds beautiful.”

They hold each other like they understand each other and _that_ is perfect also. Not like an arrow through the heart or a lightning bolt but important.

“Does anyone want to suck on a popsicle?”

Logan’s face is framed between two panels of sheer gauze curtain and judging from the height, he’s on his knees. His skin is red, sweaty, and his smile is gigantic.

“What?”

Three firecracker popsicles slowly emerge from behind the curtain at fly-level.

Weevil sighs. “Wow. You’re a class act.”

“I try. Ricks, are you giving Eli the prom experience he never had?”

Logan jumps up, breezing past the gauze, and does a twirl—extending his bouquet of popsicles to Erica, who’s grinning at him like he’s a strip mall Easter Bunny. She takes the one in the middle and kisses him on the cheek. Logan looks down, wiping at the spot with his knuckles, a small smile on his face.

“How did you know I wanted one?”

“I can sense needs at ten paces.” Logan pivots one of his feet onto the heel, flexes it, and moves it back and forth, like a foot-wave hello. He stops the movement, sniffs, then shrugs, shaking off whatever breezy front he'd been going for. “Who doesn't love a popsicle? I heard the truck and made a run for it.”

Weevil is high, this is a fact of the moment, but he can’t possibly be so high that he’s lost the ability to understand time. “But you were just getting busy, how the hell did you manage that?”

“Eli!” Erica hisses, under her breath. It’s cute how unthreatening it sounds.

“Well, I really don’t know what you mean. I was giving Samantha a massage. She told me she was stressed out from finals and I happen to have excellent hands. Put her right to sleep.” He smiles slowly, the corners of his mouth looking like they’re about to hit his ears, and points the two remaining popsicles at Weevil. “Firecracker?”

He waggles his eyebrows and Weevil reaches out, ready to smack the cocksucker should he try and make him jump for the offering. Logan doesn’t. Weevil takes the popsicle, nods once in thanks, then tears the paper wrapping off slowly, digging at the parts where the paper gets stuck. Once freed, Weevil licks the rocket point and the synthetic cherry flavor hits his tastebuds with a sugary snap.

Erica _mmms_ contentedly. “I love firecracker pops. My favorite is the lemon part, I wish that was last instead of blueberry. It’s always blueberry at the bottom.”

“That’s how they want it, chica. Because when a kid sees another kid with bright blue lips, you know he’s gonna be running to his grandma for one. Street marketing in its purest form.”

“Walking advertisements, one and all,” Logan says in between sucks.

Erica laughs. “I never even thought of that. Is that why you got ‘em Logan? You want to make everyone envious of your blue lips?”

Logan sits, putting his feet up on another chair, and biting down on the juncture where the red ice meets the white. “I was feeling patriotic. Who drew that?”

Weevil’s drawing is on the table next to Logan and he slides it towards himself with the pads of his fingers. Weevil stands to go snatch it from him, but something about Logan’s expression, blank and open, the opposite of his default asshole smirk, stops him.

“It’s beautiful. The eyes and mouth.”

“Eli did it. He designs tattoos too.”

Logan looks his way and nods. “This is great. You have real talent. You taking art classes at Hearst?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“What for? It’s not going to lead to anything.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I gotta pay the bills, yo. Who would buy that shit?”

Doofus does that thing where it’s a smile to everyone else but to Weevil, it’s a challenge. “Me. I’ll be your… patron.”

“Wait a minute. That’s _my_ picture.”

“So I’ll buy it from you.”

Erica shakes her head. “Nope. Not for sale. All mine.”

He puts down the drawing and sighs. “My loss.”

The three of them continue eating their popsicles in silence. Weevil thinks about tomorrow, how he’ll be able to sleep late since the kids will still be out. How he probably won’t because he’s so used to getting up at 6 a.m. to get them ready for school. He misses them.

The mockingbird starts up his song again and it’s the loneliest shit he’s ever heard.

Most of his friends don’t come round anymore. He’s not in the game and they don’t want to get him involved. Fam protects fam. His old crew kept him out of trouble, so he could rise on ahead. _Seguir adelante_ , the cry of every barrio. A song only a few get to hear. He is determined to hold onto it, that song, no matter how long it takes to get there—the place that going forward takes you. The place where you can finally stop looking over your shoulder at what’s coming up behind you and just breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, folks who read this story. You are hardcore for following it. I appreciate you very much.
> 
> There is one more chapter left.
> 
> Thank you to FFSG for their cheerleading.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Come follow me on Tumblr: @ghostcat3000


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